Prioritizing History

You can hardly turn around in America these days without bumping into a “house museum” or some such similar bit of preserved history, and some have begun to speculate that we are cheapening history by drawing attention to so much of it. This week, a gathering of public historians takes place in Pittsburgh, with participants set to tackle some of the more difficult questions of access, overexposure, and creative control. “How and why should history museums interpret the recent past? How can corporate historians balance thorough analysis with the pressures of maintaining a positive corporate image? And who should determine what history is: curators or the community?”